August 16, 2021 • 43 mins
Morisot primarily worked in oils, watercolors and pastels, and her favorite subjects were the other women in her life, often captured very tenderly in private, domestic moments. Her life is entwined with the Manets, and she was right at the heart of the Impressionist movement.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Do you
remember when we went to Paris? It feels like a
million years ago. I remember. I think about it every day.
(00:22):
It was in I went to the Museum marmsam Monet,
and as that name suggests, they have a lot of Monet.
That's why we were there. My spouse is a big
Monet fan, and I just generally like the Impressionists, so
we decided to go to this museum that has the
largest collection of Monet all in one place, which is
(00:44):
thanks to Claude Monet's son, Michelle, who donated a lot
of his father's artwork to the museum. While we were there, though,
I really fell in love with the work of Bart
Marie zoo So. I had seen a couple of Morisso's
paintings reproduced in books, but as is so often the case,
(01:05):
that really just didn't compare to being there looking at
it in person, also with an audio tour to kind
of draw my attention to things that I might not
have noticed otherwise. Bart Morisso primarily worked in oils and
watercolors and pastel's, and her favorite subjects were really the
other women in her life, often captured in these very
(01:26):
like tenderly private domestic moments. The paintings that were on
display while we were there included several that she had
done of her daughter from her childhood into her adolescence,
and I just became really entranced with this idea that
a woman who's focus was on painting things that are
traditionally considered feminine, like she was right at the heart
(01:47):
of the Impressionist movement. Um, it's been almost two years
since I pulled anything off of my stuff from the
Paris trip idealist on the show, so High decided it
was time time to go back to that list again. Yea,
all things Paris all good by me. So Bert Marie
(02:08):
Pauline Marisseau was born in Bourge, France, on January eighteen
forty one, and a lot of sources you'll see say
that she was descended from Rococo painter Jean Honore fragon Now,
who died about thirty five years before she was born.
There are articles all over the web that say he
was her grandfather. That is definitely not the truth, they
(02:29):
might have been more distantly related though, Yeah, it's a
little unclear. It was maybe even just like a family
lore of ah he's we were related to him. It's
not clearly documented anywhere. He could have also been found
family and they just called him her grand like. There
are so many options. Yeah, yeah, and they're also there
are some parallels between Rococo artwork and uh Morizeau's artwork,
(02:54):
so people may have been seeing some commonalities there. I
don't really know. Her mother was Marie Joseph being Cornelioma,
who was known as Cornelie. She was from a pretty
affluent family. And then Bert's father, ed made t Buers Morisso,
who was known as Tabuers, picked up an independent income
of about eight thousand francs a year through his marriage
(03:16):
to her. This was a pretty good amount of money
for comparison, the average worker made about three francs a day,
so this family was living very comfortably. Most sources described
them as being very firmly in the upper middle class
or the grand bourgeoisie. Tibus did still work, though he
had studied art and architecture, and he had tried and
(03:39):
failed to start an architecture journal in the years before
his marriage, he became a civil servant. In his exact
job and how high up that job was varied from
one administration to another. When the children were young, the
family moved from place to place as he was appointed
to different posts. But he was also something of a yalist,
(04:00):
which led to his resignation or to being dismissed at
several points along the curve as this job progressed. This
included when King Louis Philippe was forced off the throne
in eighteen forty eight, when Napoleon the Third came to
power in eight one, and when Napoleon the Third nationalized
property that had previously belonged to the Royal House of Orleons.
(04:22):
After all that, in about eighteen fifty two, tib Yours
moved the family to Passy that's now part of Paris,
but at the time it was more like a suburb,
and aside from travel and vacations things like that, the
Morrisa's lived in the Passy neighborhood for most of the
rest of their lives. Barts had two older sisters, Marie
Elizabeth's Eve known as Eve, and Marie ed Maquereline known
(04:45):
as Edma. Their younger brother, Tiburs, was born when Bert
was somewhere between the ages of four and seven. His
birth year not entirely clear, and we don't really have
much information about the siblings young lives, and what we
do have mostly comes from Tiber's who was interviewed by
Barrett's first biographers, but that didn't happen until he was
(05:05):
in his sixties. Yeah, who even knows how accurate a
person's recollection of their sisters childhood's where that far out.
The Morizo's sisters had a pretty conventional upbringing, though they
were raised by their mother and grandmother and governesses, including
one English governess who left bart with a love of Shakespeare.
(05:29):
They also took music lessons, and in eighteen fifty seven,
Cornelie decided to have them instructed in art. Their father
had said that he wished his daughters knew how to draw,
so Cornelie thought she would get lessons for them and
have each of them make a drawing for him as
a surprise gift. It's a lovely sentiment. I think it's
very sweet. Their first teacher was Geoffrey alfran Chokern, and
(05:53):
their instruction with him doesn't seem to have actually gone
very well. He started out teaching them cross hatch sing
three times a week in four hour sessions. If you've
ever done any cross hatching, you can see where this
would not be the most delightful way to get a
child interested in art. Sounds tedious to me, This is
very tedious. Eve found this so tedious that she gave
(06:15):
up drawing to do needlework. But bet and Edma became
artistic partners for more than a decade, supporting one another
and critiquing each other's work. When they started their art lessons,
there and Edma were in their late teens and it
just wasn't considered appropriate for them to be out alone.
But if the two of them were together, that was
(06:36):
less of an issue. As long as they were somewhere
that it was appropriate for young women to be at all.
They were really in agreement about where and how much
they wanted to paint, and so the fact that they
were both pursuing this made it much easier for the
two of them to just paint whenever they wanted as
much as they wanted. Their mother did accompany them, sometimes,
(06:58):
usually bringing along her sewing with her when she did,
but like they had more options, they didn't have to
like goad their mom into coming with them so they
could go somewhere in paint. After becoming dissatisfied with Showkaarn's
art classes and all of that cross hatching, which is
an important skill, but that's a lot uh, Barrett and
Edma found a new teacher that was Joseph bag and
(07:20):
he seems to have recognized their potential and that they
had a dedication beyond what was expected for middle class teenagers.
Taking art lessons like taking classes in painting or drawing
was not unusual, but their level of focus on it
really was. According to their younger brother. At one point,
Ard said to their mother, are you sure that you
(07:40):
will never rue the day when art, having entered a
once respectable, peaceful home, becomes the sole master of your
two children's destinies. But Cornelie wasn't concerned about her daughter's
painting becoming a problem, at least she wasn't yet. One
of the standard ways to study art at this point
was to copy the work of the old masters, and
(08:03):
Guichard registered the Morizzo's sisters at the Louver so they
could work there. Barrett particularly focused on copying the work
of Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. Eventually, Bart and Edma
told their mother they wanted to study plan air painting,
that is, painting outdoors rather than sketching an outdoor scene
to paint in the studio. By eighteen sixty two they
(08:26):
were studying with landscape painter Jean baptisque amuco Or when
he was away or he was too busy with his
student Francois Udon, Although this continued until about eighteen sixty eight.
At some point they had a falling out with Udnan.
The details are unknown, but bear to Edma's letters to
one another and make it clear that in the end
(08:46):
they both hated him and they found him ridiculous. In
eighteen sixty four, Barrett and Edma both had pieces accepted
to the government sponsored art exhibition known as the Salon,
and that was a critically important venue for artists to
establish their reputations antifined buyers for their work. The sisters
(09:06):
were listed as students of Guichard and Udineaux, and this
was the first of several appearances at the Salon for
each of them. At my Head, pieces accepted every year
until eighteen sixty eight, and Bart exhibited work there six
times between eighteen sixty five and eighteen seventy three. The
jury at the Salon tended to be pretty conservative, though,
(09:29):
and as her work got more experimental, less and less
of it was accepted, until none of her submitted pieces
were accepted in eighteen seventy four, the first time their
work appeared at the salon, Bart was twenty three and
Edma was twenty five, and even though the standard life
path for women of their station was to marry and
have children, their parents were still quite supportive of their art.
(09:52):
In eighteen sixty five, the Morrisseauls had a standalone studio
built at their Posse home, and they hosted dinners every
Tuesday night, inviting painters, writers, musicians, basically making their home
into a gathering place for creatives and intellectuals. But then,
in eighteen sixty seven, Eves, the oldest of the Morizo daughters,
(10:12):
got married, and in one way, this opened up some
new opportunities for Bear and Edma. While they could get
away with painting together without another chaperone, they couldn't really
travel on their own, so having a married, older sister
gave them a new potential chaperone and traveling companion. At
the same time, though Eve's marriage seems to have prompted
(10:35):
Cornelie to start worrying about when her younger daughters would
find husbands of their own, and whether their art was
getting in the way of that. In eighteen sixty eight,
the Maurisso's met a family that would have a big
effect on their lives, and vice versa. We're going to
talk more about that after a sponsor break. In eighteen
(11:03):
sixty eight, the Morrisso's met the Manet's after Bart Morrisso
met Eduard Manet while she was copying at the Loop,
but each of their reputations had preceded them. Manet was
already known as a controversial and sometimes really scandalous artist.
He had shown his work at the Salon de Refuse
in eighteen sixty three after the official salon had rejected it,
(11:27):
and Carlie Morrisseau also had a friend who had spent
an evening at the man A residence and then afterward
had told her all about how her daughter's artwork had
been a topic of conversation that night. Edwar Many was
married when he and Bart first met, and there's been
some speculation that they may have had an affair, or
at least that she was in love with him. She
(11:49):
clearly found him attractive, and he painted at least fourteen
pictures of her during his lifetime. But there really isn't
any substantiation for an affair. And and there is this
which Manet wrote to a reftin Latu, in quote the
young Mori, so girls are charming. It's annoying that they
are not men. However, as women they could serve the
(12:12):
cause of painting by each marrying a member of the
French academy and sewing discord in the camp of those daughterards.
I find that both hilarious and kind of insulting, a
little yucky, but also kind of funny. Maybe not a
thing you would say about somebody you were having an
affair with, but who knows. Regardless of that detail, the
(12:36):
Manet's and the Morrison's became friends. They entertained each other regularly,
and they also made a lot of connections to other
prominent people in Paris, like Charles Boulaire and Emulola. Sometimes
Manee is described as influencing bart to Morizeau, but really
each of them was influencing the other one, including her
(12:58):
encouraging him to try painting on plan air. Each of
them was really playing off of the other and developing
their own artistic styles, which for both of them would
be a big part of the foundation of the Impressionist movement.
In eighteen sixty nine, Edma Maurrisso married a Navy lieutenant
named Adolph Pantillon, who was a longtime friend of Eduard Maney's,
(13:21):
and this had at least as much of an impact
on Bert's life as the connection to Manna had the
year before. Bett and admir were each other's best friends
and artistic partners, and they had really never been separated before.
They both missed one another terribly once this marriage took place,
exchanging lots of sorrowful letters. Although Edma still painted from
(13:44):
time to time, her career as an artist really ended
when she got married. She wrote to her sister about
being dissatisfied with what she tried to paint, and also
about just time kind of getting away from her, especially
after she became a mother. Edma suggested that marriage might
be challenging for Bart as well. At one point Bart
(14:05):
wrote to her sister, quote, men are inclined to believe
that they fell all of one's life. But as for me,
I think that no matter how much affection one might
feel for one's husband, it is not easy to break
off a life of work. Romance is all very well
as long as there is something else besides it to
fill one's days. Edma encouraged her to delay getting married,
(14:27):
telling her to quote, use all your skill and all
your charm to find something more satisfactory for you. About
three months after Edma got married, Bart went to visit
her and stayed for part of the summer, and this
is when she started painting pictures of her sister. Basically,
every time the sisters visited one another, art painted. It
(14:49):
is possible that Bart painted her sister before this point,
but she later destroyed much of her work from before
eighteen sixty nine, so if there are pictures that she
made of her her before this point, they did not survive.
Their mother, though, was becoming less supportive of their artistic career.
She was starting to really fear that her youngest daughter
(15:10):
was just never going to get married. Yeah, keeping in
mind that at that point that was really the only
path to know you had like financial stability in life
for a woman, So you know, a little different than
the way people push people into marriage today, but still
probably annoying if you're Bart right. Bart did not submit
(15:31):
any work to the Salon in eighteen sixty nine. She
had submitted every year since eighteen sixty four, although she
did not document her reasons anywhere. This exceptional year was
probably a combination of her sister's marriage, her spending some
of her time modeling for Edua Manet and Alfred Stevens,
and some kind of issue with one of her eyes.
(15:53):
She described it swelling and that she had to wear
a bandage there. Did submit to the Salon again in
eight and seventy and two of her paintings were accepted
that year. Both of them featured her sister, ed Ba.
One of them was the artists sister at a Window
and the other was portrait of two women also called
the mother and sister of the artist. Edma was pregnant
(16:15):
with her first child and both of these paintings, and
that's something that's disguised a bit through she's wearing these
flowing white dresses. If you know she's pregnant. Looking at it,
you can kind of see that she looks a little pregnant,
but it's not as obvious as it might have been
in another outfit or posture. Baird had asked Edward Mane
(16:39):
for some advice on the painting of her sister and mother,
and in response, he had significantly retouched and repainted part
of that painting before he submitted it to the salon.
Morrisseau had developed this very light, almost sketchy style that
intentionally left parts of her paintings looking almost unfinished, and
in my name's mind he finished it for her in
(17:01):
the process, causing Marissa's mother to look different from the
rest of the painting. Morrissau was just sick about this,
writing to her sister that her only hope for it
was that it would be rejected and it was not. Yeah,
it's She was deeply upset. You can see pictures of
this painting online, and her mother is noticeably different, even
(17:25):
for someone who doesn't have a lot of formal training
or any really formal training in art, like noticeable differences
and how her mother has painted versus her sister and
the rest of the picture. The Franco Prussian War started
in eighteen seventy and Paris was under siege from September
nineteenth of eighteen seventy to January of eighteen seventy one.
(17:48):
The Morrissa's were affluent enough to be sheltered from some
of the worst of this, but this was still a
time of fear, danger, and deprivation. Members of them Licia
were quartered at the Morristo home and Passi. Bart's brother
served in the military and was captured, eventually escaping in
the hold of a ship. Eve described Bart as being
(18:11):
nervous and sad, fainting and developing consumption during the war.
Bart referred to it as a quote leaden nightmare. When
she could, she painted mostly in watercolors, just so that
she could have something to focus on. By January of
eighteen seventy one, all the Morristo's had to eat were crackers,
and they ate only crackers for days. This deprivation seems
(18:35):
to have negatively affected Bart's health. She had recurring illnesses,
and it is not clear whether her digestion was affected
or whether her eating became disordered. After the war was over,
Bart and her parents retreated to San German on Lay,
and they narrowly avoided the violence and destruction that followed.
When Adolph Tier, who was the head of the National Assembly,
(18:58):
dispatched troops to deal with the uprising known as the
Paris Commune. Briefly, this was an insurrection against the National
Assembly and the decisions that it made following the Franco
Prussian War. There's a bit more about this whole period
in our recent episodes on the Dreyfus affair. Bart's studio
was destroyed during this wave of violence, along with the
(19:19):
work that was in it. Adolph Tier was a family
friend of the Morrisso's, and Bart's parents supported his decisions
in dealing with the Paris Commune. There was something that
led to the deaths of at least twenty thousand Parisians.
There's specific opinions about this aren't really recorded anywhere aside
from mentioning increasing disagreements with her parents, But many of
(19:41):
the artists she knew, including Mane, were relatively moderate, not
supporting the Communards but also denouncing the government's response. Yeah,
the Communards generally tended to be working class people. Some
were also artists, but not general people who were more affluent,
and so the their position and more of the upper
(20:04):
middle class meant that a lot of the people that
Barrett was more directly connected with. Uh, we're opposed to
what the government was doing, but also we're really supporting
the uprising itself that much. After all of this was over,
Barrett and her sister Eves took a trip to Spain.
Barrett seems to have wanted a break from her parents
(20:24):
and maybe also from some of the other more conservative
people who were living in their neighborhood. She also started
talking about really trying to make a living as a painter,
and this was becoming a little more possible thanks to
the existence of private dealers who were starting to sell
more artwork outside of official venues like the Selon. Morrisso's
(20:45):
first private sales were through Paul Drouet in eighteen seventy two.
He had developed a reputation for taking on more experimental
avant garde work and successfully finding buyers for it. The
term Impressionist hadn't yet ben coined when Deron Rouetta started
buying the work of artists like Bert Morrisso, Claude Monet,
(21:05):
guard Ga, and Camille Pizzaro, but today he's known for recognizing, promoting,
and really financing the Impressionist movement. Eighteen seventy four was
a tumultuous year in Morrisso's life, her father died on
January of a progressive heart condition. In addition to her grief,
his passing raised financial issues for her and for the
(21:28):
rest of the family. Barrett inherited about forty thou francs.
That was the substantial amount of money, but it also
was not enough to just live off of for the
rest of her life. Then, April fifteenth, eighteen seventy four
was the opening of the first Impressionist art exhibition, although
again the organizers didn't call themselves that, they were the
anonymous Society of painters, sculptors, printmakers, etcetera. Their artwork was
(21:53):
so controversial that they tried to keep their names at
least somewhat out of the spotlight. But the name Impressionists
followed this exhibition. Critic Louis Leroy wrote a scathing review,
and he picked up the name from one of Monet's
exhibited works, titled impression Sunrise. Most of the Impressionists did
not start using that name themselves until a few years later.
(22:16):
Some of them never ever did. Yeah, some of them
hated that name a whole lot. Morristeau had ten pieces
in this exhibition, and she was the only woman whose
art was included but this really cemented her as one
of these central artists in this movement, along with Claude Monet,
Edguard de Gas, Pierre, Auguste Renoir, Commute Pizarro, and Alfred Sisley.
(22:40):
Although the exhibition was praised for its organization, it was
generally panned by art critics and sometimes panned viciously. It
was full of art that the French Academy would not
have accepted for the salon, which broke a lot of
the formal conventions related to everything from painting technique to
subject matter. Many of the painters and selves were also
(23:01):
just viewed as degenerate radicals and a cap off eighteen
seventy four. On December twenty two, Barrett Morriso got married
to Eugene Mane, who was the brother of Edward Mane.
She had known him since eighteen sixty eight. Her marriage
certificate described her as having no profession. Sometimes people interpret
that as a slight on her painting, but it was
(23:23):
not really considered appropriate for an upper middle class woman
to have a profession. Her husband, though, was listed as
a man of property, which cracks me up a little
bit there. It was thirty two that was really pretty
old for someone's first marriage, and she also seems to
have been really pragmatic about it. She described herself as
(23:44):
getting married quote without the least pomp, in a dress
and a hat, like an old woman that I am,
and without guests. They did have both a civil and
religious service, was how it typically worked at this point.
Mariso had been raised Catholic, but she wasn't really observed
it anymore. But skipping the church wedding entirely would have
really upset her family. Even though Bert's mother had been
(24:07):
really eager for her to be married, most of the
family was somewhere on a spectrum between ambivalent and disapproving
when it came to her choice of husband. Bart's brother
had described him as intelligent but lazy, criticizing him for
being in his thirties but still not seeming to know
what he wanted to do with his life. Her mother
(24:27):
had called him crazy and said that he had no
common sense, and she had criticized his Republican politics during
the Paris Commune. They were also both fairly anxious people.
It's an anxious person. I understand how this can be
challenging to have two anxious people and the relationship, but Eugene,
like Barrett, and like his brother Edward, was an artist.
(24:49):
He understood and supported and promoted Bart's work, and he
promoted her work rather than trying to build a professional
career for himself. She continued to sign all of her
work Barrett, more so after getting married, and we're going
to talk more about her life post marriage after we
pause for a sponsor break. The Impressionist movement in France
(25:19):
made it somewhat more possible for women to become publicly
known as artists. Women weren't admitted to the prestigious at
col de Boisart, but the Impressionists were not following a
lot of the artistic rules and conventions that that school
was teaching. It wasn't considered appropriate for women to do
nude figure studies, but again, the Impressionists weren't really focused
(25:43):
on figure studies anyway. In terms of subject matter, a
lot of the Impressionists focused on landscapes and on the
everyday lives of the French middle class, so women could
paint or draw the world around them rather than needing
a studio to set up formal portrait. There's still lives
to work from. It also wasn't considered appropriate for women
(26:04):
to hire professional art models, since models were regarded almost
as sex workers. But the impressionists focus on everyday life
meant that women artists could depict their friends and their
families instead, and bear to Marisso's work fit right into this.
Her favorite subjects included her friends and family and the
places they lived and traveled. She portrayed her subjects in
(26:27):
an intimate and tender way that was simultaneously almost sketchy,
with very loose brushstrokes, experimenting with light and color in
a way that kind of pushed the boundaries. All of
that said, though the position of women in the movement
was a little complicated. Morissau was a central figure and
the Impressionist movement from the very very beginning, but at
(26:49):
first she was also the only woman. Later prominent women
Impressionists include Mary Cassatt and Marie Breckemol, but most of
the well known figures in the movement it were and
continue to be men. In general, women faced criticism for
publicly showing and selling their art, but the hallmarks of
Impressionism shield them from some of the criticism of the
(27:11):
movement itself. In the late nineteenth century, women in France
were generally viewed as inferior to men and less capable
of rational thought, so impressionists loose brushwork, fluidity and focus
on sensation rather than composition was more acceptable for a woman,
after all, that was probably the best that she could do,
(27:32):
but that was not the case for a man. For
her own part, Morrisso wrote this in her diary in quote,
I don't think there has ever been a man who
treated a woman as an equal, and that's all I
would have asked for. I know I'm worth as much
as they are. Although Cornelie Morrisseau didn't love the idea
of her daughter marrying Eugene Mane, once the wedding was over,
(27:54):
she got back to supporting Bart's artistic career. As Bert
adjusted to being married, she stopped producing as many paintings
of her sister Edma, and she painted her husband Eugene instead.
They honeymooned in England in eighteen seventy five. That same year,
the Impressionists held an art auction, and although some of
Morrisso's pieces sold for respectable amounts, the auction itself was
(28:17):
kind of a fiasco, with the auctioneer having to call
the police because of unruly detractors who disrupted the bidding.
In eighteen seventy six, the Impressionists held their second exhibition.
Critic Albert Wolfe described Morrisso this way in his review
of it, quote, there's also a woman in the group,
as in most notorious gangs. She's called Bert Morrisso and
(28:40):
is curious to note, and her case, a feminine grace,
has maintained amid the outpouring of a delirious mind. Eugene
considered challenging him to a duel over this, but did not.
I'm glad he didn't, but also what a jerk. On
December seventy six, Cornellie Morrisso did. Two years later, in
(29:02):
eighteen seventy eight, bear To Morris gave birth to a daughter.
Julie Bart was thirty seven at this point and had
been trying to get pregnant since marrying eugen Her recovery
from giving birth was quite difficult, but she really loved
her daughter, and she had a wet nurse and other
staff to take care of her, so she was still
able to paint. Julie became her favorite model. She was
(29:24):
in about one third of Morris's paintings. After she was born,
Morrisseau learned to paint very quickly, and her style became
even sketchier. Because her young daughter just didn't stay still
for very long. Since she was still recovering from giving birth,
Morrisseau was unable to participate in the eighteen seventy eight
Impressionist exhibition. This is the only one that she didn't
(29:46):
participate of the formal exhibitions that happened during these years.
But that year she did exchange several letters with Mary Cassette,
who first exhibited with the Impressionists in eighteen seventy nine.
That year, der Morrisseau had started working again, Mary Cassatt
wrote to her, quote, I am so pleased that you
have been working a lot. You're going to make a
(30:07):
brilliant return to the exhibition, and I assure you that
I am really envious of your talent. Cassette also proposed
that they each paint one another's portraits, but that never happened. Sadly,
by one more women had become associated with the Impressionist movement,
and women in France were generally trying to get more
exposure as artists. The Union of Women Painters and Sculptors
(30:31):
was founded in eighty one to promote the work of
women artists and to advocate for women to be admitted
to the Ecole de Bosare. Although Morrisso was well established
as an artist and she resisted the constraints that were
placed on women in French society, she didn't really participate
in this movement for women's inclusion and recognition. In addition
(30:52):
to the artwork that Barrett Morriso contributed to the Impressionist movement,
she and her husband bought the work of other artists
from the movement and also financially contributed to it. That
included paying the rent to rent the space for the
eighteen eighty two Impressionist exhibition. Bart couldn't personally attend that year.
They had been away from Paris and Julie had become ill,
(31:14):
so Bart had stayed with her her husband chose which
paintings for her to exhibit that year. Edoir Mane died
on April eighteen eighty three. He and Morrisso had been
influencing each other's work for about fifteen years, and after
his death, Morriso started to bring in more influences from
the work of Pierre Auguste Renoir. This included visiting his
(31:36):
studio in eighteen eighty six and seeing his work as
a draftsman. They discussed doing preparatory drawings in advance of painting,
and this became a bigger part of Morrisso's process. She
would make sketches and studies ahead of time in something
like red chalk, charcoal or pastel, before then moving on
to paint on canvas. In eighteen eighty nine, Morrisso made
(31:59):
multiple visit to the Expositial and Universal. We talked about
that in our episode on Gustavi Fell. That same year,
she organized a campaign to buy Eduard Manet's painting Olympia
for the Nation of France. In eighteen nineties, she visited
the Acole de Bozar to view a collection of Japanese
prints that was there. This was something that Mary Cassatte
(32:20):
had invited and encouraged her to do at some point
around that time. Morris So also traded some of her
paintings for some Japanese prints, and for a while she
and Cassette worked pretty closely together on their artwork. I
feel like a whole thing about the interplay between Japanese
artwork and the Impressionists, like a whole other subject for
(32:42):
sure outside the scope of this podcast, but I wanted
to note it. Eugene Manet had gotten sick in eighteen
eighty six and he never fully recovered. He died on
April thirteenth. Before his death, though he had negotiated morris
Soo's first solo exhibition, which included forty of her paintings
along with work on paper. This exhibition was mostly but
(33:05):
not entirely, well reviewed, and some of her pieces sold
at good prices. Morisso said that Mary Cassatt never commented
on this exhibition. It is not clear whether this was
a cause or an effect, but their relationship seems to
have become more contentious over time. Yeah, she was bothered
by the fact that Mary Cassette never commented on this exhibition.
(33:28):
Um Way later, after Barrett Morrisso had died, one of
the things that I read was that Mary Cassatt was
giving some of her paintings to a museum, and the
ones that were selected, she was, like Barrett Morrisso, didn't
like those. They seem to have gotten into some kind
of like either adversarial or frenemy kind of situation eventually,
(33:48):
But I wish I knew more detail. About uh. Morris
So really grieved over her husband's death, and after the
exhibition was over, she and jually moved into a smaller
apartment that was what was expected for a widow. On
June eighth, eight three, Barrett's sister Eve died, and then
in July got the flu and Bart took care of her,
(34:11):
eventually getting sick herself and that developed into pneumonia, and
Bart morris died on March second, eight at the age
of fifty four. She was buried with the Mene brothers
in the family plot and had a gravestone that reads
Bart Morriso, widow of Eugene Manet. Like her marriage certificate,
her death certificates said that she had no profession. After
(34:35):
Morisso's death, Camille Bizarro wrote this to his son quote
still in Paris, because I want to attend the funeral
of our old comrade Barrett Morrisso, who died after an
attack of influenza. You can hardly conceive how surprised we
all were, and how moved too, by the disappearance of
this distinguished woman, who had such a splendid feminine talent,
(34:56):
and who brought honor to our impressionist group. Which has vanished.
Like all things poor Madame Morizo, the public hardly knows her.
Bart's death left her daughter, Julie an orphan at the
age of sixteen. Morrisseau had named French symbolist poet Stefan
Malami as Julie's guardian. Bart and Stefan had been friends
(35:17):
for years. Julie was looked after by her mother's friends
from the art world, particularly Renoir and Dega. Bart had
taught Julie to paint as soon as she was old
enough to start learning, although her work never really compared
to her mother's. Julie also kept a diary, which she
started when she was fourteen and which she continued through.
(35:39):
This period. Includes the Dreyfus affair, which reached its peak
after Morisso's death. As we talked about in our recent
two partner, the affair really divided the Impressionists, with Renoir
and Dega both being anti dreyfusards. So Julie's diary relates
the anti Semitic remarks of both Renas are and they got,
(36:01):
not really criticizing them for it, and then also reflects
her own anti Semitic attitudes. Where Barrett morris So might
have fallen on. This isn't really clear. Her circle of
close friends and colleagues included dre Fassards and anti Drafissards,
but really was like from de Gat on the virulently
anti Semitic, anti Dreyfisard's side of the equation too. Camille's
(36:25):
a lot on the other ends the whole spectrum. Uh So,
I don't really know what her opinions would have been
on that. During her lifetime, Bert Morris produced more than
eight hundred sixty paintings. The year after her death, Renoir,
Degat and Monet held a memorial show that featured three
d eight of her works. That is a lot of work.
(36:47):
But although Julie and some of Morisso's other friends and
relatives donated some pieces to museums, the vast majority of
this work remained with private collectors. Many that were part
of her memorial exhibition have not been publicly shown since then.
Since Morisso's work wasn't really on public view very much
after her death, her name became less remembered as one
(37:10):
of the central figures of the Impressionist movement, instead of
being really well known as such an important part of
that movement. She instead became mostly known as Eduard Manet's
model and muse This doesn't just mean that Morrisso's own
artwork was largely forgotten about. It also means that there
wasn't as much of an examination of how her work
(37:32):
influenced the Impressionist movement as a whole, specifically the work
of other artists like Dega Money Money and Red War
and vice versa. Like I read multiple articles by art
historians who were like, we understand all this work less
because we don't know enough about Barrett Morizou. That all
started to shift a little bit in when thirteen of
(37:53):
her paintings were shown in London at a post Impressionist exhibition.
Other exhibitions followed, but they've and relatively few and far between.
In the some of Morrissa's descendants donated paintings to the
muse Mama Now the Musee has the largest collection of
Bert Morrisso's artwork in the world, and includes twenty five
(38:16):
oil paintings and seventy five watercolors, along with pastels and drawings.
So in more recent years her work has become more
visible and accessible. We will end with a quote from
her daughters Julie who said, quote, every time I see
a beautiful landscape, I will think to myself how well
Mama would have painted that. I find that very sweet.
(38:40):
Do you have very sweet listener mail? I do have
listener mail. This is about something that came up in
this episode. It's our two parter on the Dreyfus affair.
I've gotten a couple of notes about this, uh so
I wanted to clarify. So this is from Michelle who
wrote an email told Alfred dreyfusts and Zionism, and she wrote,
(39:03):
Dear Holly and Tracy. I thoroughly enjoyed the two part
episode on Alfred Dreyfust. Growing up, we learned that the
Dreyfust affair was the spark that led directly to the
foundation of the State of Israel. A reporter in the
crowd at the public shaming of Dreyfus was to become
known as the father of modern Zionism. Theodore Herzel would
(39:24):
go on to be a national hero in Israel and
have many streets named in his honor. Mount Herzel and
Israel is a revered site which is home to his
final resting place. Political Zionism is very different from traditional
religious Zionism and that it is completely secular in nature.
In fact, Herzel suggested Uganda as a new home for
the Jews, since the Ottoman Empire at that time was
(39:46):
not such a friend to the Jewish people. As political
Zionism spread through Europe, it was exported to America through
publications and strengthened with the immigration of many Jewish people
fleeing violence and an increasing number of anti Jews laws.
When the British took over the land of Israel, there
had been a growing pressure from Jewish communities worldwide to
(40:07):
form a Jewish state in the Jewish indigenous homeland. A
white paper in the British Parliament was issued declaring just
such an intention in ninety nine, known as the Balfour Declaration.
The Zionism movement of Europe sparked several waves of immigration
over the century, resulting in a boom and the highly
secular population in Israel. This has greatly influenced the country
(40:27):
to this day. I highly suggest Theodore Herzl as a
follow up to the Dreyfast episodes. Thank you for the
great work that you do. Your podcast is continually on
our recommendations. Let's keep up the good work, Michelle um.
Michelle then followed with some notes about how to pronounce
things in Hebrew, and I will just note that when
we work on pronunciations for the show, I'm always finding
(40:50):
native speakers that I can hear say things, because when
people kind of type out notes about how to pronounce things,
that often does not translate to successfully figuring out how
to say it. In any way, whenever somebody tells me
that something rhymes with Sarah, I think about how my
grandmother said that as Sarah, which totally changes how you
(41:12):
would say that word. So anyway, we've gotten several notes
about about Herzel and Zionism and this idea that the
Drapest affair directly led to this, and that is almost
ubiquitous in popular writing about him. But there's actually some
controversy about whether the Drapeist affair directly led to his Zionism,
(41:36):
because he had witnessed and experienced anti Semitism in Vienna,
where he was from, for his whole life before covering
the Drapist affair. His diaries at the time don't really
mention it, and his contemporaries described his Zionism as really
stemming from his upbringing in Vienna, uh, including people who
were writing about his his life after he died in
(41:59):
nineteen four. So his own writing about the process of
writing The Jewish State, which became like a foundational text
within the movement, didn't really mentioned Dreyfus at all until
a lot later. His first mentions that directly connected Drapust
to his Zionism were in a publication that he was
(42:20):
writing for US audiences, where there was huge support for
Drapust overall. So there's some suggestion that he was kind
of bringing in the Dreyfust name to try to build
support for it, rather than that being like that specifically
the thing that led him to focus on zion is
um um. Most of the worst parts of the Drapist
affair actually played out after he published The Jewish State,
(42:44):
which was again that uh, that document that he wrote
about it. Um. So that is just a little note
on that for the folks that have sent that in
or for folks that that we're interested in that whole idea. UM.
If you would like to write to us about this
or any other podcast, we're at History Podcasts at I
heart radio dot com, and we're all over social media
(43:07):
at miss in History. So That's where you'll find our
Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest in Instagram. You can subscribe
to our show on the I heart Radio app or
anywhere else that eat your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in
History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
(43:29):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Do you
remember when we went to Paris? It feels like a
million years ago. I remember. I think about it every day.
(00:22):
It was in I went to the Museum marmsam Monet,
and as that name suggests, they have a lot of Monet.
That's why we were there. My spouse is a big
Monet fan, and I just generally like the Impressionists, so
we decided to go to this museum that has the
largest collection of Monet all in one place, which is
(00:44):
thanks to Claude Monet's son, Michelle, who donated a lot
of his father's artwork to the museum. While we were there, though,
I really fell in love with the work of Bart
Marie zoo So. I had seen a couple of Morisso's
paintings reproduced in books, but as is so often the case,
(01:05):
that really just didn't compare to being there looking at
it in person, also with an audio tour to kind
of draw my attention to things that I might not
have noticed otherwise. Bart Morisso primarily worked in oils and
watercolors and pastel's, and her favorite subjects were really the
other women in her life, often captured in these very
(01:26):
like tenderly private domestic moments. The paintings that were on
display while we were there included several that she had
done of her daughter from her childhood into her adolescence,
and I just became really entranced with this idea that
a woman who's focus was on painting things that are
traditionally considered feminine, like she was right at the heart
(01:47):
of the Impressionist movement. Um, it's been almost two years
since I pulled anything off of my stuff from the
Paris trip idealist on the show, so High decided it
was time time to go back to that list again. Yea,
all things Paris all good by me. So Bert Marie
(02:08):
Pauline Marisseau was born in Bourge, France, on January eighteen
forty one, and a lot of sources you'll see say
that she was descended from Rococo painter Jean Honore fragon Now,
who died about thirty five years before she was born.
There are articles all over the web that say he
was her grandfather. That is definitely not the truth, they
(02:29):
might have been more distantly related though, Yeah, it's a
little unclear. It was maybe even just like a family
lore of ah he's we were related to him. It's
not clearly documented anywhere. He could have also been found
family and they just called him her grand like. There
are so many options. Yeah, yeah, and they're also there
are some parallels between Rococo artwork and uh Morizeau's artwork,
(02:54):
so people may have been seeing some commonalities there. I
don't really know. Her mother was Marie Joseph being Cornelioma,
who was known as Cornelie. She was from a pretty
affluent family. And then Bert's father, ed made t Buers Morisso,
who was known as Tabuers, picked up an independent income
of about eight thousand francs a year through his marriage
(03:16):
to her. This was a pretty good amount of money
for comparison, the average worker made about three francs a day,
so this family was living very comfortably. Most sources described
them as being very firmly in the upper middle class
or the grand bourgeoisie. Tibus did still work, though he
had studied art and architecture, and he had tried and
(03:39):
failed to start an architecture journal in the years before
his marriage, he became a civil servant. In his exact
job and how high up that job was varied from
one administration to another. When the children were young, the
family moved from place to place as he was appointed
to different posts. But he was also something of a yalist,
(04:00):
which led to his resignation or to being dismissed at
several points along the curve as this job progressed. This
included when King Louis Philippe was forced off the throne
in eighteen forty eight, when Napoleon the Third came to
power in eight one, and when Napoleon the Third nationalized
property that had previously belonged to the Royal House of Orleons.
(04:22):
After all that, in about eighteen fifty two, tib Yours
moved the family to Passy that's now part of Paris,
but at the time it was more like a suburb,
and aside from travel and vacations things like that, the
Morrisa's lived in the Passy neighborhood for most of the
rest of their lives. Barts had two older sisters, Marie
Elizabeth's Eve known as Eve, and Marie ed Maquereline known
(04:45):
as Edma. Their younger brother, Tiburs, was born when Bert
was somewhere between the ages of four and seven. His
birth year not entirely clear, and we don't really have
much information about the siblings young lives, and what we
do have mostly comes from Tiber's who was interviewed by
Barrett's first biographers, but that didn't happen until he was
(05:05):
in his sixties. Yeah, who even knows how accurate a
person's recollection of their sisters childhood's where that far out.
The Morizo's sisters had a pretty conventional upbringing, though they
were raised by their mother and grandmother and governesses, including
one English governess who left bart with a love of Shakespeare.
(05:29):
They also took music lessons, and in eighteen fifty seven,
Cornelie decided to have them instructed in art. Their father
had said that he wished his daughters knew how to draw,
so Cornelie thought she would get lessons for them and
have each of them make a drawing for him as
a surprise gift. It's a lovely sentiment. I think it's
very sweet. Their first teacher was Geoffrey alfran Chokern, and
(05:53):
their instruction with him doesn't seem to have actually gone
very well. He started out teaching them cross hatch sing
three times a week in four hour sessions. If you've
ever done any cross hatching, you can see where this
would not be the most delightful way to get a
child interested in art. Sounds tedious to me, This is
very tedious. Eve found this so tedious that she gave
(06:15):
up drawing to do needlework. But bet and Edma became
artistic partners for more than a decade, supporting one another
and critiquing each other's work. When they started their art lessons,
there and Edma were in their late teens and it
just wasn't considered appropriate for them to be out alone.
But if the two of them were together, that was
(06:36):
less of an issue. As long as they were somewhere
that it was appropriate for young women to be at all.
They were really in agreement about where and how much
they wanted to paint, and so the fact that they
were both pursuing this made it much easier for the
two of them to just paint whenever they wanted as
much as they wanted. Their mother did accompany them, sometimes,
(06:58):
usually bringing along her sewing with her when she did,
but like they had more options, they didn't have to
like goad their mom into coming with them so they
could go somewhere in paint. After becoming dissatisfied with Showkaarn's
art classes and all of that cross hatching, which is
an important skill, but that's a lot uh, Barrett and
Edma found a new teacher that was Joseph bag and
(07:20):
he seems to have recognized their potential and that they
had a dedication beyond what was expected for middle class teenagers.
Taking art lessons like taking classes in painting or drawing
was not unusual, but their level of focus on it
really was. According to their younger brother. At one point,
Ard said to their mother, are you sure that you
(07:40):
will never rue the day when art, having entered a
once respectable, peaceful home, becomes the sole master of your
two children's destinies. But Cornelie wasn't concerned about her daughter's
painting becoming a problem, at least she wasn't yet. One
of the standard ways to study art at this point
was to copy the work of the old masters, and
(08:03):
Guichard registered the Morizzo's sisters at the Louver so they
could work there. Barrett particularly focused on copying the work
of Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. Eventually, Bart and Edma
told their mother they wanted to study plan air painting,
that is, painting outdoors rather than sketching an outdoor scene
to paint in the studio. By eighteen sixty two they
(08:26):
were studying with landscape painter Jean baptisque amuco Or when
he was away or he was too busy with his
student Francois Udon, Although this continued until about eighteen sixty eight.
At some point they had a falling out with Udnan.
The details are unknown, but bear to Edma's letters to
one another and make it clear that in the end
(08:46):
they both hated him and they found him ridiculous. In
eighteen sixty four, Barrett and Edma both had pieces accepted
to the government sponsored art exhibition known as the Salon,
and that was a critically important venue for artists to
establish their reputations antifined buyers for their work. The sisters
(09:06):
were listed as students of Guichard and Udineaux, and this
was the first of several appearances at the Salon for
each of them. At my Head, pieces accepted every year
until eighteen sixty eight, and Bart exhibited work there six
times between eighteen sixty five and eighteen seventy three. The
jury at the Salon tended to be pretty conservative, though,
(09:29):
and as her work got more experimental, less and less
of it was accepted, until none of her submitted pieces
were accepted in eighteen seventy four, the first time their
work appeared at the salon, Bart was twenty three and
Edma was twenty five, and even though the standard life
path for women of their station was to marry and
have children, their parents were still quite supportive of their art.
(09:52):
In eighteen sixty five, the Morrisseauls had a standalone studio
built at their Posse home, and they hosted dinners every
Tuesday night, inviting painters, writers, musicians, basically making their home
into a gathering place for creatives and intellectuals. But then,
in eighteen sixty seven, Eves, the oldest of the Morizo daughters,
(10:12):
got married, and in one way, this opened up some
new opportunities for Bear and Edma. While they could get
away with painting together without another chaperone, they couldn't really
travel on their own, so having a married, older sister
gave them a new potential chaperone and traveling companion. At
the same time, though Eve's marriage seems to have prompted
(10:35):
Cornelie to start worrying about when her younger daughters would
find husbands of their own, and whether their art was
getting in the way of that. In eighteen sixty eight,
the Maurisso's met a family that would have a big
effect on their lives, and vice versa. We're going to
talk more about that after a sponsor break. In eighteen
(11:03):
sixty eight, the Morrisso's met the Manet's after Bart Morrisso
met Eduard Manet while she was copying at the Loop,
but each of their reputations had preceded them. Manet was
already known as a controversial and sometimes really scandalous artist.
He had shown his work at the Salon de Refuse
in eighteen sixty three after the official salon had rejected it,
(11:27):
and Carlie Morrisseau also had a friend who had spent
an evening at the man A residence and then afterward
had told her all about how her daughter's artwork had
been a topic of conversation that night. Edwar Many was
married when he and Bart first met, and there's been
some speculation that they may have had an affair, or
at least that she was in love with him. She
(11:49):
clearly found him attractive, and he painted at least fourteen
pictures of her during his lifetime. But there really isn't
any substantiation for an affair. And and there is this
which Manet wrote to a reftin Latu, in quote the
young Mori, so girls are charming. It's annoying that they
are not men. However, as women they could serve the
(12:12):
cause of painting by each marrying a member of the
French academy and sewing discord in the camp of those daughterards.
I find that both hilarious and kind of insulting, a
little yucky, but also kind of funny. Maybe not a
thing you would say about somebody you were having an
affair with, but who knows. Regardless of that detail, the
(12:36):
Manet's and the Morrison's became friends. They entertained each other regularly,
and they also made a lot of connections to other
prominent people in Paris, like Charles Boulaire and Emulola. Sometimes
Manee is described as influencing bart to Morizeau, but really
each of them was influencing the other one, including her
(12:58):
encouraging him to try painting on plan air. Each of
them was really playing off of the other and developing
their own artistic styles, which for both of them would
be a big part of the foundation of the Impressionist movement.
In eighteen sixty nine, Edma Maurrisso married a Navy lieutenant
named Adolph Pantillon, who was a longtime friend of Eduard Maney's,
(13:21):
and this had at least as much of an impact
on Bert's life as the connection to Manna had the
year before. Bett and admir were each other's best friends
and artistic partners, and they had really never been separated before.
They both missed one another terribly once this marriage took place,
exchanging lots of sorrowful letters. Although Edma still painted from
(13:44):
time to time, her career as an artist really ended
when she got married. She wrote to her sister about
being dissatisfied with what she tried to paint, and also
about just time kind of getting away from her, especially
after she became a mother. Edma suggested that marriage might
be challenging for Bart as well. At one point Bart
(14:05):
wrote to her sister, quote, men are inclined to believe
that they fell all of one's life. But as for me,
I think that no matter how much affection one might
feel for one's husband, it is not easy to break
off a life of work. Romance is all very well
as long as there is something else besides it to
fill one's days. Edma encouraged her to delay getting married,
(14:27):
telling her to quote, use all your skill and all
your charm to find something more satisfactory for you. About
three months after Edma got married, Bart went to visit
her and stayed for part of the summer, and this
is when she started painting pictures of her sister. Basically,
every time the sisters visited one another, art painted. It
(14:49):
is possible that Bart painted her sister before this point,
but she later destroyed much of her work from before
eighteen sixty nine, so if there are pictures that she
made of her her before this point, they did not survive.
Their mother, though, was becoming less supportive of their artistic career.
She was starting to really fear that her youngest daughter
(15:10):
was just never going to get married. Yeah, keeping in
mind that at that point that was really the only
path to know you had like financial stability in life
for a woman, So you know, a little different than
the way people push people into marriage today, but still
probably annoying if you're Bart right. Bart did not submit
(15:31):
any work to the Salon in eighteen sixty nine. She
had submitted every year since eighteen sixty four, although she
did not document her reasons anywhere. This exceptional year was
probably a combination of her sister's marriage, her spending some
of her time modeling for Edua Manet and Alfred Stevens,
and some kind of issue with one of her eyes.
(15:53):
She described it swelling and that she had to wear
a bandage there. Did submit to the Salon again in
eight and seventy and two of her paintings were accepted
that year. Both of them featured her sister, ed Ba.
One of them was the artists sister at a Window
and the other was portrait of two women also called
the mother and sister of the artist. Edma was pregnant
(16:15):
with her first child and both of these paintings, and
that's something that's disguised a bit through she's wearing these
flowing white dresses. If you know she's pregnant. Looking at it,
you can kind of see that she looks a little pregnant,
but it's not as obvious as it might have been
in another outfit or posture. Baird had asked Edward Mane
(16:39):
for some advice on the painting of her sister and mother,
and in response, he had significantly retouched and repainted part
of that painting before he submitted it to the salon.
Morrisseau had developed this very light, almost sketchy style that
intentionally left parts of her paintings looking almost unfinished, and
in my name's mind he finished it for her in
(17:01):
the process, causing Marissa's mother to look different from the
rest of the painting. Morrissau was just sick about this,
writing to her sister that her only hope for it
was that it would be rejected and it was not. Yeah,
it's She was deeply upset. You can see pictures of
this painting online, and her mother is noticeably different, even
(17:25):
for someone who doesn't have a lot of formal training
or any really formal training in art, like noticeable differences
and how her mother has painted versus her sister and
the rest of the picture. The Franco Prussian War started
in eighteen seventy and Paris was under siege from September
nineteenth of eighteen seventy to January of eighteen seventy one.
(17:48):
The Morrissa's were affluent enough to be sheltered from some
of the worst of this, but this was still a
time of fear, danger, and deprivation. Members of them Licia
were quartered at the Morristo home and Passi. Bart's brother
served in the military and was captured, eventually escaping in
the hold of a ship. Eve described Bart as being
(18:11):
nervous and sad, fainting and developing consumption during the war.
Bart referred to it as a quote leaden nightmare. When
she could, she painted mostly in watercolors, just so that
she could have something to focus on. By January of
eighteen seventy one, all the Morristo's had to eat were crackers,
and they ate only crackers for days. This deprivation seems
(18:35):
to have negatively affected Bart's health. She had recurring illnesses,
and it is not clear whether her digestion was affected
or whether her eating became disordered. After the war was over,
Bart and her parents retreated to San German on Lay,
and they narrowly avoided the violence and destruction that followed.
When Adolph Tier, who was the head of the National Assembly,
(18:58):
dispatched troops to deal with the uprising known as the
Paris Commune. Briefly, this was an insurrection against the National
Assembly and the decisions that it made following the Franco
Prussian War. There's a bit more about this whole period
in our recent episodes on the Dreyfus affair. Bart's studio
was destroyed during this wave of violence, along with the
(19:19):
work that was in it. Adolph Tier was a family
friend of the Morrisso's, and Bart's parents supported his decisions
in dealing with the Paris Commune. There was something that
led to the deaths of at least twenty thousand Parisians.
There's specific opinions about this aren't really recorded anywhere aside
from mentioning increasing disagreements with her parents, But many of
(19:41):
the artists she knew, including Mane, were relatively moderate, not
supporting the Communards but also denouncing the government's response. Yeah,
the Communards generally tended to be working class people. Some
were also artists, but not general people who were more affluent,
and so the their position and more of the upper
(20:04):
middle class meant that a lot of the people that
Barrett was more directly connected with. Uh, we're opposed to
what the government was doing, but also we're really supporting
the uprising itself that much. After all of this was over,
Barrett and her sister Eves took a trip to Spain.
Barrett seems to have wanted a break from her parents
(20:24):
and maybe also from some of the other more conservative
people who were living in their neighborhood. She also started
talking about really trying to make a living as a painter,
and this was becoming a little more possible thanks to
the existence of private dealers who were starting to sell
more artwork outside of official venues like the Selon. Morrisso's
(20:45):
first private sales were through Paul Drouet in eighteen seventy two.
He had developed a reputation for taking on more experimental
avant garde work and successfully finding buyers for it. The
term Impressionist hadn't yet ben coined when Deron Rouetta started
buying the work of artists like Bert Morrisso, Claude Monet,
(21:05):
guard Ga, and Camille Pizzaro, but today he's known for recognizing, promoting,
and really financing the Impressionist movement. Eighteen seventy four was
a tumultuous year in Morrisso's life, her father died on
January of a progressive heart condition. In addition to her grief,
his passing raised financial issues for her and for the
(21:28):
rest of the family. Barrett inherited about forty thou francs.
That was the substantial amount of money, but it also
was not enough to just live off of for the
rest of her life. Then, April fifteenth, eighteen seventy four
was the opening of the first Impressionist art exhibition, although
again the organizers didn't call themselves that, they were the
anonymous Society of painters, sculptors, printmakers, etcetera. Their artwork was
(21:53):
so controversial that they tried to keep their names at
least somewhat out of the spotlight. But the name Impressionists
followed this exhibition. Critic Louis Leroy wrote a scathing review,
and he picked up the name from one of Monet's
exhibited works, titled impression Sunrise. Most of the Impressionists did
not start using that name themselves until a few years later.
(22:16):
Some of them never ever did. Yeah, some of them
hated that name a whole lot. Morristeau had ten pieces
in this exhibition, and she was the only woman whose
art was included but this really cemented her as one
of these central artists in this movement, along with Claude Monet,
Edguard de Gas, Pierre, Auguste Renoir, Commute Pizarro, and Alfred Sisley.
(22:40):
Although the exhibition was praised for its organization, it was
generally panned by art critics and sometimes panned viciously. It
was full of art that the French Academy would not
have accepted for the salon, which broke a lot of
the formal conventions related to everything from painting technique to
subject matter. Many of the painters and selves were also
(23:01):
just viewed as degenerate radicals and a cap off eighteen
seventy four. On December twenty two, Barrett Morriso got married
to Eugene Mane, who was the brother of Edward Mane.
She had known him since eighteen sixty eight. Her marriage
certificate described her as having no profession. Sometimes people interpret
that as a slight on her painting, but it was
(23:23):
not really considered appropriate for an upper middle class woman
to have a profession. Her husband, though, was listed as
a man of property, which cracks me up a little
bit there. It was thirty two that was really pretty
old for someone's first marriage, and she also seems to
have been really pragmatic about it. She described herself as
(23:44):
getting married quote without the least pomp, in a dress
and a hat, like an old woman that I am,
and without guests. They did have both a civil and
religious service, was how it typically worked at this point.
Mariso had been raised Catholic, but she wasn't really observed
it anymore. But skipping the church wedding entirely would have
really upset her family. Even though Bert's mother had been
(24:07):
really eager for her to be married, most of the
family was somewhere on a spectrum between ambivalent and disapproving
when it came to her choice of husband. Bart's brother
had described him as intelligent but lazy, criticizing him for
being in his thirties but still not seeming to know
what he wanted to do with his life. Her mother
(24:27):
had called him crazy and said that he had no
common sense, and she had criticized his Republican politics during
the Paris Commune. They were also both fairly anxious people.
It's an anxious person. I understand how this can be
challenging to have two anxious people and the relationship, but Eugene,
like Barrett, and like his brother Edward, was an artist.
(24:49):
He understood and supported and promoted Bart's work, and he
promoted her work rather than trying to build a professional
career for himself. She continued to sign all of her
work Barrett, more so after getting married, and we're going
to talk more about her life post marriage after we
pause for a sponsor break. The Impressionist movement in France
(25:19):
made it somewhat more possible for women to become publicly
known as artists. Women weren't admitted to the prestigious at
col de Boisart, but the Impressionists were not following a
lot of the artistic rules and conventions that that school
was teaching. It wasn't considered appropriate for women to do
nude figure studies, but again, the Impressionists weren't really focused
(25:43):
on figure studies anyway. In terms of subject matter, a
lot of the Impressionists focused on landscapes and on the
everyday lives of the French middle class, so women could
paint or draw the world around them rather than needing
a studio to set up formal portrait. There's still lives
to work from. It also wasn't considered appropriate for women
(26:04):
to hire professional art models, since models were regarded almost
as sex workers. But the impressionists focus on everyday life
meant that women artists could depict their friends and their
families instead, and bear to Marisso's work fit right into this.
Her favorite subjects included her friends and family and the
places they lived and traveled. She portrayed her subjects in
(26:27):
an intimate and tender way that was simultaneously almost sketchy,
with very loose brushstrokes, experimenting with light and color in
a way that kind of pushed the boundaries. All of
that said, though the position of women in the movement
was a little complicated. Morissau was a central figure and
the Impressionist movement from the very very beginning, but at
(26:49):
first she was also the only woman. Later prominent women
Impressionists include Mary Cassatt and Marie Breckemol, but most of
the well known figures in the movement it were and
continue to be men. In general, women faced criticism for
publicly showing and selling their art, but the hallmarks of
Impressionism shield them from some of the criticism of the
(27:11):
movement itself. In the late nineteenth century, women in France
were generally viewed as inferior to men and less capable
of rational thought, so impressionists loose brushwork, fluidity and focus
on sensation rather than composition was more acceptable for a woman,
after all, that was probably the best that she could do,
(27:32):
but that was not the case for a man. For
her own part, Morrisso wrote this in her diary in quote,
I don't think there has ever been a man who
treated a woman as an equal, and that's all I
would have asked for. I know I'm worth as much
as they are. Although Cornelie Morrisseau didn't love the idea
of her daughter marrying Eugene Mane, once the wedding was over,
(27:54):
she got back to supporting Bart's artistic career. As Bert
adjusted to being married, she stopped producing as many paintings
of her sister Edma, and she painted her husband Eugene instead.
They honeymooned in England in eighteen seventy five. That same year,
the Impressionists held an art auction, and although some of
Morrisso's pieces sold for respectable amounts, the auction itself was
(28:17):
kind of a fiasco, with the auctioneer having to call
the police because of unruly detractors who disrupted the bidding.
In eighteen seventy six, the Impressionists held their second exhibition.
Critic Albert Wolfe described Morrisso this way in his review
of it, quote, there's also a woman in the group,
as in most notorious gangs. She's called Bert Morrisso and
(28:40):
is curious to note, and her case, a feminine grace,
has maintained amid the outpouring of a delirious mind. Eugene
considered challenging him to a duel over this, but did not.
I'm glad he didn't, but also what a jerk. On
December seventy six, Cornellie Morrisso did. Two years later, in
(29:02):
eighteen seventy eight, bear To Morris gave birth to a daughter.
Julie Bart was thirty seven at this point and had
been trying to get pregnant since marrying eugen Her recovery
from giving birth was quite difficult, but she really loved
her daughter, and she had a wet nurse and other
staff to take care of her, so she was still
able to paint. Julie became her favorite model. She was
(29:24):
in about one third of Morris's paintings. After she was born,
Morrisseau learned to paint very quickly, and her style became
even sketchier. Because her young daughter just didn't stay still
for very long. Since she was still recovering from giving birth,
Morrisseau was unable to participate in the eighteen seventy eight
Impressionist exhibition. This is the only one that she didn't
(29:46):
participate of the formal exhibitions that happened during these years.
But that year she did exchange several letters with Mary Cassette,
who first exhibited with the Impressionists in eighteen seventy nine.
That year, der Morrisseau had started working again, Mary Cassatt
wrote to her, quote, I am so pleased that you
have been working a lot. You're going to make a
(30:07):
brilliant return to the exhibition, and I assure you that
I am really envious of your talent. Cassette also proposed
that they each paint one another's portraits, but that never happened. Sadly,
by one more women had become associated with the Impressionist movement,
and women in France were generally trying to get more
exposure as artists. The Union of Women Painters and Sculptors
(30:31):
was founded in eighty one to promote the work of
women artists and to advocate for women to be admitted
to the Ecole de Bosare. Although Morrisso was well established
as an artist and she resisted the constraints that were
placed on women in French society, she didn't really participate
in this movement for women's inclusion and recognition. In addition
(30:52):
to the artwork that Barrett Morriso contributed to the Impressionist movement,
she and her husband bought the work of other artists
from the movement and also financially contributed to it. That
included paying the rent to rent the space for the
eighteen eighty two Impressionist exhibition. Bart couldn't personally attend that year.
They had been away from Paris and Julie had become ill,
(31:14):
so Bart had stayed with her her husband chose which
paintings for her to exhibit that year. Edoir Mane died
on April eighteen eighty three. He and Morrisso had been
influencing each other's work for about fifteen years, and after
his death, Morriso started to bring in more influences from
the work of Pierre Auguste Renoir. This included visiting his
(31:36):
studio in eighteen eighty six and seeing his work as
a draftsman. They discussed doing preparatory drawings in advance of painting,
and this became a bigger part of Morrisso's process. She
would make sketches and studies ahead of time in something
like red chalk, charcoal or pastel, before then moving on
to paint on canvas. In eighteen eighty nine, Morrisso made
(31:59):
multiple visit to the Expositial and Universal. We talked about
that in our episode on Gustavi Fell. That same year,
she organized a campaign to buy Eduard Manet's painting Olympia
for the Nation of France. In eighteen nineties, she visited
the Acole de Bozar to view a collection of Japanese
prints that was there. This was something that Mary Cassatte
(32:20):
had invited and encouraged her to do at some point
around that time. Morris So also traded some of her
paintings for some Japanese prints, and for a while she
and Cassette worked pretty closely together on their artwork. I
feel like a whole thing about the interplay between Japanese
artwork and the Impressionists, like a whole other subject for
(32:42):
sure outside the scope of this podcast, but I wanted
to note it. Eugene Manet had gotten sick in eighteen
eighty six and he never fully recovered. He died on
April thirteenth. Before his death, though he had negotiated morris
Soo's first solo exhibition, which included forty of her paintings
along with work on paper. This exhibition was mostly but
(33:05):
not entirely, well reviewed, and some of her pieces sold
at good prices. Morisso said that Mary Cassatt never commented
on this exhibition. It is not clear whether this was
a cause or an effect, but their relationship seems to
have become more contentious over time. Yeah, she was bothered
by the fact that Mary Cassette never commented on this exhibition.
(33:28):
Um Way later, after Barrett Morrisso had died, one of
the things that I read was that Mary Cassatt was
giving some of her paintings to a museum, and the
ones that were selected, she was, like Barrett Morrisso, didn't
like those. They seem to have gotten into some kind
of like either adversarial or frenemy kind of situation eventually,
(33:48):
But I wish I knew more detail. About uh. Morris
So really grieved over her husband's death, and after the
exhibition was over, she and jually moved into a smaller
apartment that was what was expected for a widow. On
June eighth, eight three, Barrett's sister Eve died, and then
in July got the flu and Bart took care of her,
(34:11):
eventually getting sick herself and that developed into pneumonia, and
Bart morris died on March second, eight at the age
of fifty four. She was buried with the Mene brothers
in the family plot and had a gravestone that reads
Bart Morriso, widow of Eugene Manet. Like her marriage certificate,
her death certificates said that she had no profession. After
(34:35):
Morisso's death, Camille Bizarro wrote this to his son quote
still in Paris, because I want to attend the funeral
of our old comrade Barrett Morrisso, who died after an
attack of influenza. You can hardly conceive how surprised we
all were, and how moved too, by the disappearance of
this distinguished woman, who had such a splendid feminine talent,
(34:56):
and who brought honor to our impressionist group. Which has vanished.
Like all things poor Madame Morizo, the public hardly knows her.
Bart's death left her daughter, Julie an orphan at the
age of sixteen. Morrisseau had named French symbolist poet Stefan
Malami as Julie's guardian. Bart and Stefan had been friends
(35:17):
for years. Julie was looked after by her mother's friends
from the art world, particularly Renoir and Dega. Bart had
taught Julie to paint as soon as she was old
enough to start learning, although her work never really compared
to her mother's. Julie also kept a diary, which she
started when she was fourteen and which she continued through.
(35:39):
This period. Includes the Dreyfus affair, which reached its peak
after Morisso's death. As we talked about in our recent
two partner, the affair really divided the Impressionists, with Renoir
and Dega both being anti dreyfusards. So Julie's diary relates
the anti Semitic remarks of both Renas are and they got,
(36:01):
not really criticizing them for it, and then also reflects
her own anti Semitic attitudes. Where Barrett morris So might
have fallen on. This isn't really clear. Her circle of
close friends and colleagues included dre Fassards and anti Drafissards,
but really was like from de Gat on the virulently
anti Semitic, anti Dreyfisard's side of the equation too. Camille's
(36:25):
a lot on the other ends the whole spectrum. Uh So,
I don't really know what her opinions would have been
on that. During her lifetime, Bert Morris produced more than
eight hundred sixty paintings. The year after her death, Renoir,
Degat and Monet held a memorial show that featured three
d eight of her works. That is a lot of work.
(36:47):
But although Julie and some of Morisso's other friends and
relatives donated some pieces to museums, the vast majority of
this work remained with private collectors. Many that were part
of her memorial exhibition have not been publicly shown since then.
Since Morisso's work wasn't really on public view very much
after her death, her name became less remembered as one
(37:10):
of the central figures of the Impressionist movement, instead of
being really well known as such an important part of
that movement. She instead became mostly known as Eduard Manet's
model and muse This doesn't just mean that Morrisso's own
artwork was largely forgotten about. It also means that there
wasn't as much of an examination of how her work
(37:32):
influenced the Impressionist movement as a whole, specifically the work
of other artists like Dega Money Money and Red War
and vice versa. Like I read multiple articles by art
historians who were like, we understand all this work less
because we don't know enough about Barrett Morizou. That all
started to shift a little bit in when thirteen of
(37:53):
her paintings were shown in London at a post Impressionist exhibition.
Other exhibitions followed, but they've and relatively few and far between.
In the some of Morrissa's descendants donated paintings to the
muse Mama Now the Musee has the largest collection of
Bert Morrisso's artwork in the world, and includes twenty five
(38:16):
oil paintings and seventy five watercolors, along with pastels and drawings.
So in more recent years her work has become more
visible and accessible. We will end with a quote from
her daughters Julie who said, quote, every time I see
a beautiful landscape, I will think to myself how well
Mama would have painted that. I find that very sweet.
(38:40):
Do you have very sweet listener mail? I do have
listener mail. This is about something that came up in
this episode. It's our two parter on the Dreyfus affair.
I've gotten a couple of notes about this, uh so
I wanted to clarify. So this is from Michelle who
wrote an email told Alfred dreyfusts and Zionism, and she wrote,
(39:03):
Dear Holly and Tracy. I thoroughly enjoyed the two part
episode on Alfred Dreyfust. Growing up, we learned that the
Dreyfust affair was the spark that led directly to the
foundation of the State of Israel. A reporter in the
crowd at the public shaming of Dreyfus was to become
known as the father of modern Zionism. Theodore Herzel would
(39:24):
go on to be a national hero in Israel and
have many streets named in his honor. Mount Herzel and
Israel is a revered site which is home to his
final resting place. Political Zionism is very different from traditional
religious Zionism and that it is completely secular in nature.
In fact, Herzel suggested Uganda as a new home for
the Jews, since the Ottoman Empire at that time was
(39:46):
not such a friend to the Jewish people. As political
Zionism spread through Europe, it was exported to America through
publications and strengthened with the immigration of many Jewish people
fleeing violence and an increasing number of anti Jews laws.
When the British took over the land of Israel, there
had been a growing pressure from Jewish communities worldwide to
(40:07):
form a Jewish state in the Jewish indigenous homeland. A
white paper in the British Parliament was issued declaring just
such an intention in ninety nine, known as the Balfour Declaration.
The Zionism movement of Europe sparked several waves of immigration
over the century, resulting in a boom and the highly
secular population in Israel. This has greatly influenced the country
(40:27):
to this day. I highly suggest Theodore Herzl as a
follow up to the Dreyfast episodes. Thank you for the
great work that you do. Your podcast is continually on
our recommendations. Let's keep up the good work, Michelle um.
Michelle then followed with some notes about how to pronounce
things in Hebrew, and I will just note that when
we work on pronunciations for the show, I'm always finding
(40:50):
native speakers that I can hear say things, because when
people kind of type out notes about how to pronounce things,
that often does not translate to successfully figuring out how
to say it. In any way, whenever somebody tells me
that something rhymes with Sarah, I think about how my
grandmother said that as Sarah, which totally changes how you
(41:12):
would say that word. So anyway, we've gotten several notes
about about Herzel and Zionism and this idea that the
Drapest affair directly led to this, and that is almost
ubiquitous in popular writing about him. But there's actually some
controversy about whether the Drapeist affair directly led to his Zionism,
(41:36):
because he had witnessed and experienced anti Semitism in Vienna,
where he was from, for his whole life before covering
the Drapist affair. His diaries at the time don't really
mention it, and his contemporaries described his Zionism as really
stemming from his upbringing in Vienna, uh, including people who
were writing about his his life after he died in
(41:59):
nineteen four. So his own writing about the process of
writing The Jewish State, which became like a foundational text
within the movement, didn't really mentioned Dreyfus at all until
a lot later. His first mentions that directly connected Drapust
to his Zionism were in a publication that he was
(42:20):
writing for US audiences, where there was huge support for
Drapust overall. So there's some suggestion that he was kind
of bringing in the Dreyfust name to try to build
support for it, rather than that being like that specifically
the thing that led him to focus on zion is
um um. Most of the worst parts of the Drapist
affair actually played out after he published The Jewish State,
(42:44):
which was again that uh, that document that he wrote
about it. Um. So that is just a little note
on that for the folks that have sent that in
or for folks that that we're interested in that whole idea. UM.
If you would like to write to us about this
or any other podcast, we're at History Podcasts at I
heart radio dot com, and we're all over social media
(43:07):
at miss in History. So That's where you'll find our
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Tracy Wilson
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